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Side-by-side images of the Face on Mars: the blurry 1976 Viking view and the sharp 2001 Mars Global Surveyor view
The same hill. Left: Viking 1, 1976. Right: Mars Global Surveyor, April 8, 2001 (about 1.5–2 m per pixel). NASA / Viking 1 (left); NASA / JPL / Malin Space Science Systems (right) · Public domain · source · source · via Wikimedia Commons
IS IT TRUE?

Is the Face on Mars real?

Verdict · Established

The hill is real. The face is not. Sharper images since 1998 show an ordinary eroded mesa.

Established: Supported by strong, converging evidence.

The short answer

Viking 1 photographed a hill in the Cydonia region of Mars in 1976 that looked like a face in low sun and low resolution. When later spacecraft took far sharper pictures, the face disappeared: it is one of thousands of buttes and mesas in the area. The original look came from shadows and big pixels.

What the record shows

  1. Viking orbiter images from 1976 showed that one of thousands of buttes, mesas, ridges and knobs in the region looked somewhat like a human face. It was later popularized as a possible alien artifact. 1
  2. The Viking views were coarse. One of them, frame 70A13, was taken in late-afternoon light at about 43 metres per pixel. 2
  3. NASA's Mars Global Surveyor imaged the feature on April 5, 1998, at about 4.3 metres per pixel. 2
  4. On April 8, 2001, Mars Global Surveyor took a cloud-free image at about 1.56 to 2 metres per pixel. It shows a natural landform. 12
  5. In July 2006, the European Space Agency's Mars Express imaged Cydonia in 3D. ESA's summary: the face "remains a figment of human imagination in a heavily eroded surface." 3

Where the claim comes from

Once the 1976 image circulated, the hill was popularized as a possible alien artifact. Because interest stayed high, NASA used rare chances in 1998 and 2001 to point Mars Global Surveyor's camera straight at it. 12

What would change our verdict

Nothing short of new, sharper images showing built features. The existing high-resolution images already rule out a sculpted face.

Go deeper in the archive

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Sources

Checked 2026-11-02.

  1. INSTITUTION
    “Highest-Resolution View of "Face on Mars".” NASA Science. https://science.nasa.gov/resource/highest-resolution-view-of-face-on-mars/
  2. INSTITUTION
    “Cydonia: the Face on Mars.” NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/mgs_cydonia.html
  3. INSTITUTION
    “Cydonia: the face on Mars.” European Space Agency. https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Cydonia_-_the_face_on_Mars
  4. REFERENCE WORK
    “Cydonia (Mars).” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydonia_(Mars)

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